Joan Didion, American Novelist And Model, Passes Away At 87. May Her Soul Rest In Peace.
There is no good way to write a eulogy. There is no positive way of breaking the news of a soul that has departed. And as someone who lost her grandma to an illness very recently, news like this one hit home and genuinely hurt my heart. Moreover, coming from a literary academic background, this was even harder for me to process. With a heavy heart, I inform you that American author, Joan Didion has passed away at 87.
Joan Didion was born in Sacramento, California, in 1934. She was a woman of varied talents. She had a career in modelling and was still able to make a mark in the world of American Literature. She succumbed to her long-drawn Parkinsons. Didion studied literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She then worked at Vogue from 1956 to 1964.
“A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.” is a quote from Joan Didion’s book The Year of Magical Thinking. The book documented the first year Didion experienced after her husband’s death. And honestly, I understand the sentiment her words conveyed. She was considered to be a pioneer who was able to navigate and portray America through her eyes as she spoke about her experiences in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the 1960s.
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Joan Didion died peacefully in her home in New York due to complications in her Parkinson’s on December 23, according to sources. Didion once said, “I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it.”
I hope Didion was content with the way she lived in this world. Because she sure made her mark on it. Rest easy; model, novelist, screenwriter, and exemplary woman, Joan Didion.
